Using Integrated Company Analysis - Research Wizard

[Pages:72]Using

Integrated Company Analysis

Version 2.0

Zacks Investment Research, Inc. 2000

Manual Last Updated: 8/11/00

Contents

Overview

3

Introduction ..............................................................................................................3

Guided Tour

4

Getting Started in ICA...............................................................................................4 Parts of ICA Screen .....................................................................................4

Single Ticker Look-Up ..............................................................................................5 Working with Ticker Lists in ICA................................................................................5

ICA Ticker Types..........................................................................................5 Working with Companies Ticker Lists ...........................................................5 ICA Folders ..............................................................................................................8 Printing ICA Reports ....................................................................................8 Exporting ICA Reports..................................................................................8 Price Action Quick Start Guide..................................................................................9 Estimates Quick Start Guide .....................................................................................9 Snapshot Quick Start Guide......................................................................................9 Company vs. Industry Analysis Quick Start Guide.....................................................9 Peer Analysis Quick Start Guide ...............................................................................9 Internet-Based Reports Quick Start Guide .............................................................. 10 Clearing Temporary Internet Files........................................................................... 10

Price Action

11

Overview ................................................................................................................ 11 Basic Charting ........................................................................................................ 11

Using Chart Definitions............................................................................... 11 Understanding Price Chart Type................................................................. 12 Price Chart Frequency ............................................................................... 13 Display Data .............................................................................................. 14 Price Charts for Multiple Companies........................................................... 15 Advanced Charting ................................................................................................. 18 Editing Chart Definitions............................................................................. 18 Understanding Overlay Options.................................................................. 21 Creating New Chart Definitions .................................................................. 22 Creating New Chart Definitions for Aggregates........................................... 24

Estimates

25

Overview ................................................................................................................ 25 Estimate Reports Categories .................................................................................. 25

Current Estimates and Ratings Report ....................................................... 26 Current Estimates and Ratings Report Components................................... 26 Rating Performance Report........................................................................ 30 Rating Performance Report Components ................................................... 31 Analyst Rating History Plot ......................................................................... 33 Annual EPS Accuracy Report..................................................................... 35 Annual EPS Accuracy Report Components ................................................ 35 Quarterly EPS Accuracy Report ................................................................. 37

Snapshot

41

Doc-To-Help Standard Template

1

Overview ................................................................................................................41 Snapshot Report Components ................................................................................42

Company vs. Industry Analysis

45

Overview ................................................................................................................45 Company vs. Industry Analysis Report Components ...............................................45

Company vs. Industry Analysis Ratio Sets..................................................46 Ratio Set Editor ..........................................................................................46

Peer Analysis

48

Overview ................................................................................................................48 Zacks Peer Group ......................................................................................48 Custom Peer Group....................................................................................48

Peer Analysis Components .....................................................................................49 Peer Analysis Ratio Categories ..................................................................49 Peer Analysis Information Table .................................................................50 Peer Analysis Ratio Sets ............................................................................50 Historical Peer Analysis Charts...................................................................51 Working With Ratio Set Editor ....................................................................52

Internet-Based Reports

54

Using Internet-Based Reports .................................................................................54 Fundamental Reports .............................................................................................54

Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow tables ..........................54 Return on Equity Reports ...........................................................................54 Risk Rating/Bankruptcy Reports .................................................................55 Business Description & Management Discussion Reports .......................................55 Business Descriptions Reports ...................................................................55 Management's Discussion and Analysis Reports ........................................55 Insider Trading Report ............................................................................................55 Brokerage Research Reports and Their Abstracts...................................................55

Appendix

56

Company Overlays .................................................................................................56 Fundamental Overlays ...............................................................................56 Index Overlays ...........................................................................................57

Zacks Chart Definitions ...........................................................................................61 Zacks Sector and Industry Designations..................................................................63

Zacks X (Expanded) Sector Groups............................................................63 Zacks M (Medium) Industry Groups ............................................................63 Zacks X (Expanded) Industry Groups .........................................................64 Estimates Report Methodology ...............................................................................65

Technical Support

67

Glossary of Terms

69

Index

71

2

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Overview

Introduction

Integrated Company Analysis (ICA) is a powerful tool for examining stocks using customized charts, graphs, and reports. This product is comprised of the following components.

Price Action: analyzes the price impact of fundamentals. Price Action

reports overlay price charts with the EPS Surprises, Consensus Estimates, Annual, Quarterly or 12-month EPS, Zacks Indicator, ROE, ROA, Broker Recommendations, Sales, or Net Income data. You can also analyze company performance versus another company, Industry, Sector, S&P 500 or other major market indexes.

Estimates: displays the flow of estimate revisions and recommendations from over 300 brokerage firms and individual analyst's track record. The Estimates reports display the latest information on individual broker recommendations, annual and quarterly EPS estimates and revisions, analyst Consensus, and Zacks Ratings for over 6,500 companies. Estimates provide Analyst Track Record and Analyst Ratings History data.

Snapshot: view a single company report. Includes price, EPS surprises and estimate revisions charts along with the company's description and fundamental data.

Company vs. Industry Analysis: use charts to see how a company is performing versus the industry median, sector median, S&P 500 or a specific number based on a wide range of fundamentals.

Peer Analysis: compare a company's fundamental data to companies in the same industry or your custom peer group. Peer Analysis reports include graphs and data tables for various financial ratios.

Internet-Based Reports: analyze various fundamental data tables, Business Description & Management Discussion Reports, Insider Trading data, Brokerage Research reports and their abstracts.

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Overview 3

Guided Tour

Getting Started in ICA

4 Guided Tour

Using ICA is simple. The layout is organized in a way that allows you to begin the analysis of a company the moment you start the application. A default list of companies (Ticker List) loads automatically when ICA starts and a price chart is displayed.

To display a new report, just click the report button from the ICA Reports Access Toolbar. After specifying a report, ICA will display the name of the current report in the Title bar along with the ticker symbol.

Parts of ICA Screen

The following is a description of ICA screen elements.

Title Bar: the top bar of the ICA window. Menu Bar: the list of menu names displayed below the Title bar of ICA. ICA Reports Access Toolbar: the bar containing ICA components access buttons for corresponding reports.

ICA Report buttons

Aggregates

Indexes

Ratios Editor

Companies

Ticker Menu: the drop-down list of company, aggregate, or index tickers (located to the left of the Get Report button).

Internet Reports Menu: the bar containing a pull-down menu of Internetbase reports as well as the Get Report button.

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Single Ticker Look-Up

To access any of the ICA reports for a company, type the company's ticker symbol in the Tickers drop-down menu (located to the left of the Get Report button) then click Enter.

Working with Ticker Lists in ICA

ICA Ticker Types

There are three types of tickers used in ICA. Company Tickers: ticker symbols for stocks in Zacks companies universe. ICA has a sample list that loads automatically when the application starts. Aggregate Tickers: ticker symbols for aggregate classes such as S&P 500, Zacks Industry or Zacks Sector in Zacks aggregates universe. Index Tickers: ticker symbols for various indexes in the Zacks market index universe.

Company tickers can be used in all ICA reports, whereas Aggregate and Index tickers are used in Price Action reports only.

Working with Companies Ticker Lists

To display an ICA report, select a ticker or set of tickers (Ticker List). The Ticker List is automatically sorted by ticker symbol. When the Ticker List is selected, a price chart displays the first ticker on the list.

ICA has a sample Ticker List (myportf.txt) automatically loaded when first starting the application.

Ticker list files are in a tab-delimited format (*.txt). Use the Ticker List created with any Zacks screening application.

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Guided Tour 5

Creating Companies Ticker List

To anayze a specific set of companies (portfolio), create a Company ticker list to be used in ICA. Open the Ticker menu then select Companies or click the Companies button on the ICA toolbar. The Ticker List dialog box will appear. Enter a ticker symbol in the Add Ticker List box. Click Add or press Enter.

For entering more than one ticker at a time, use a space or a comma to separate each ticker symbol.

To view a list of all companies in the database, select Browse. The Ticker List dialog box will expand to display all companies available for selection. Use the scroll bar to browse the Full Universe selection.

Expanded Ticker List

6 Guided Tour

To create a multiple company Ticker List, select tickers by holding down the CTRL key and highlighting your selection.Next click ................
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